Jardin Atlantique
From CollabLandWiki
Jake Berg and Patrick Benson
Contents |
GOOGLE EARTH IMAGES
LOCATION
Built over the tracks of Gare Montparnasse, Paris, France
DESIGNERS
Francois Brun and Michel Pena
CONTEXT PLAN
DESIGN/PROGRAMMATIC GOALS
Approximately 9.5 acres in size; the park is composed of five areas, tennis courts and boardwalk, main lawn and water play area, children's playground, reflective garden rooms and dunes. the fountain, "the island of Hesperides" boasts a huge thermometer, a rain gauge, a weather vane and an anemometer, which measures wind speed.Visitors also find allusions to past European discoveries and conquests. The poetic and symbolic plot of the design expresses a desire to be omnipresent; The huge masts of the sextant sculpted by Bernard Vié function as a memory of the European ships that discovered the New World. The zones representing the New World and the Old World are separated by the stony sceneries of Mount Atlas on which the heavens were fabled to rest. The Isle of the Blest, a garden with golden apples is guarded by the Island of Hesperides. Pedestrians making their way through the park perceive the noise of the trains and the stench of the underground that infiltrate the surroundings. A walk through the park is not quiet: the noisy signals of the trains alternate with the splashing of fountains “announcing the roaring sea.” Whenever a train departs, the ceiling above the station, which is also the soil for the garden, begins to tremble. Trees were planted directly above the pillars that support the slab, trees from America are on one side, trees from Europe on the other.
DETAILED SECTION
STRENGTHS/WEAKNESSES
Access to the park is from within the station (three places), and from Rue de Cat, Rue Mouchotte, Boulevard de Vaugirard and Boulevard Pasteur. People who enter from the station usually do so from curiosity or boredom while they wait for their trains.The paths within the park are all handicap accessible and are well maintained by the city.It is possible to seat as many as 490 people comfortably on the park's benches – this does not include seating along the boardwalk, or on the granite edges of the park's tree pits, or the many slopes formed within the lawn area. Benches are at two levels to accommodate children and adults, and they are found throughout the park. the garden is a completely magic space with wild grass, great water fountains where kids play naked in hot summer days. The garden is an oasis completely unexpected in the city.
SECTION-ELEVATION
SUCCESS/FAILURE
SUCCESSES
- Recalls traditional use of sites as represenations
- Creates understanding of its specific locality
- Directs visitors' attention to its invented locality - Curving, tilting boardwalk, "Waves" moving across the open space
- Meandering walks "behind the cliffs" provide opportunities to look down onto the "beaches"
- Locates people strongly enough to the real world
- Meterological station is a modern, technologically sophisticated locale
- Provision of a zone of some seclusion within, even suspended above, the busy city
FAILURES
- The main difficulty lay in the presence of high-rise buildings and on opposite sides of the new green space.
- Too busy and too inventive for the average person
AUTOCAD OUTLINES
Jardin Atlantique outline
Fargo Civic Park
REFERENCES
- Landscape Design and the Experience of Motion: http://www.doaks.org/Motion/07Motion.pdf
- http://www.gardenvisit.com/garden/jardin_atlantique_paris
- http://books.google.com/books id=rOihc8l8mY4C&pg=PA218&lpg=PA218&dq=jardin+atlantique+&source=web&ots=xu12jxSMOZ&sig=2rSj1rKXWgkFpRfEWUzpXmRtAsQ&hl=en#PPA218,M1
